Recycled plastic: positive environmental balance with the highest material requirements

Cologne. Interseroh Dienstleistungs GmbH has developed a special formulation of its recycled plastic Procyclen for the eco mail order company memo AG. In future, the containers for the "memo Box" reusable shipping system will be made from the multi-award-winning material. The new formulation offers unique material properties such as durability, mechanical stability down to -30°C as well as UV resistance and transport safety, a combination that is rarely achieved even when using virgin material.

Interseroh, a subsidiary of the recycling specialist ALBA Group, produces Procyclen from plastic waste from the dual systems' collection of recyclable materials. In addition to the unique combination of material properties, the recycled plastic is also superior to any new material in terms of its raw material, energy and climate protection footprint: the use of Procyclen alone reduces greenhouse gas emissions in the production of the "memo Box" by up to 30 per cent.

Procyclen also has a lot to offer in terms of colour: "Customers can choose from a wide range of colours. For the 'memo box', we used a special pigmentation that overdyes the multicolour of the source material so that we have achieved a green that can also compete with virgin material in terms of intensity and clarity," says Dr Manica Ulcnik-Krump, Head of Research and Development Recycled-Resource at Interseroh.

What is interesting for customers is the possibility of producing Procyclen from a variety of used plastics, depending on individual requirements and intended use. In addition to polypropylene, materials such as high-density polyethylene, polystyrene or other technical plastics can also be processed. The Recycled-Resource process developed by Interseroh, with which Procyclen is produced, is based on a complex upcycling-recompounding process: the comprehensive high-tech sorting of the plastic waste is followed by recompounding, consisting of extrusion, restabilisation, reconstruction of the molecular structure and chemical modification with the addition of additives in order to achieve the exact plastic properties desired by the customer.